Those who want you to doubt that anarchy (self ownership and individual responsibility) is the best, most moral, and ethical way to live among others are asking you to accept that theft, aggression, superstition, and slavery are perhaps better.

Saturday, December 08, 2012

No new ideas?

It used to bother me when I came up with a thought, a "new idea", and then discovered that other people (Lysander Spooner, H. D. Thoreau, etc.) had thought the same thought long before I did.

This doesn't bother me much anymore.

Some things are just so self-evident that people who think will continue to come up with the same ideas over and over again. This is a very good thing.

The fact that I have an idea isn't very influential. Perhaps someday someone more influential than me will have the idea and it will spread like wildfire. Or, perhaps someday enough people will have the same idea at the same time and it will cause a huge shift in society.

Keep thinking those thoughts and don't worry that countless others throughout history have probably thought of the same thing. There may be no new ideas, but there are certainly new situations where those old ideas are needed.

And be sure and take those liberty-enhancing thoughts you have and put them to work in the real world instead of keeping them hidden inside your head. Because, ultimately, that's the only real value to having the ideas.

2 comments:

Yeah, like the so-called war on drugs is the biggest rights-violating scheme in America's history. Or, as Lysander Spooner said "vices aren't crimes." Be nice if that idea caught on like wild fire, but I'm not holding my breath.

None of us should "hold our breath" (that hordes of folks will see the light in anarchy). However, I'm thankful to have come along in life at the outset of computerization and the internet and the free exchange of ideas and views. I'm 76 and a late-starter (had to call one of my kids just now regarding a simple computing glitch -- you young folks have the advantage of having grown up with this technocracy, and things that baffle me are no-brainers to you)).

As one of the old gurus (governmentalist guru in the 40's -- can't think of his name at the moment) said, "..all I know is what I read in the newspaper.." People of my vintage and older had little in the way of opportunity to share divergent stuff with others 'round the world. The daily news was gospel. The "Power Elite" understood this from the beginning. That's why folks my age (and I'm a retired "history" teacher) have only been exposed to "directed history".

But all that is changing. We are living in the "internet reformation". Many, many of you younger guys and gals have awakened in the last 15 or so years. The Ron Paul phenomenon is a testimony to that. Many of those youngsters will be with us sooner than we might think. And that's why I wholeheartedly agree, Hawk:

"...be sure and take those liberty-enhancing thoughts you have and put them to work in the real world instead of keeping them hidden inside your head. Because, ultimately, that's the only real value to having the ideas..."